Last week I was home with our babies while Ron worked in Tondo. I received a harrowing text from him that a little boy who regularly joins our kids clubs and kids church died.
His name was Alexa. He was 6 years old.
A family member cleaned his ear with rusty metal and he died with tetanus.
I cried and cried with sadness and with anger at the injustice. So many injustices in that place. A built up cry to God at the many injustices we have seen recently.
God loves justice. He loves to make wrong- right. He delights in filling hopelessness with hope.
Oh God pour your beautiful justice on Tondo.
Most weeks there is some kind of tragedy within the community and we watch as people we love go through pain upon pain. Sometimes we can help. Sometimes we cannot.
I always have that sick to my to my stomach feeling when people come to ask to "borrow the nice choir outfits". It means someone has died and has no clothes to wear inside the casket. We have given away too many choir dresses and barongs (Filipino styled shirts) to dress friends who's life came to an end far too early.
Amidst the darkest of the dark situations there are people from within the communities RISING UP with a love for Jesus and a heart to see change in their own community. Community leaders come to us and share their ideas, even dreams and visions of the future. Young people that used to say their hope was to be a "good scavenger" growing into amazing men and woman who are realizing the HOPE AND FUTURE Jesus wants them to have.
Just the other day we experienced them minister to us once again. We both were really heavy hearted and burdened. As we began leaders training the young leaders began by sharing their testimonies with one and other. We laughed with them. We cried with them. We thanked God for them. They each spoke strength and encouragement to our very souls. They declared to each other stories of what Jesus had done in their lives. We saw Jesus in them. What an amazing privilege to have watched these young children develop into young adults who love God and their community.
The last few weeks have been difficult. We have felt real attacks of the enemy on the ministry as well as our family. Believing God is about to do something new and that His light is about to make something change in the spiritual atmosphere of the place. The enemy is god of this world-- of poverty and all the strongholds that come with it, BUT greater is HE who is IN US (AND IN HS CHILDREN IN THE COMMUNITY) than he who is in the world. As more on the dump site give their lives to Jesus and show true fruit in their lives- MORE HOPE- MORE JOY and MORE CRIES FOR JUSTICE ARE BORN- chipping away at the despair and hopelessness that the father of lies would try to bind people in.
Please would you pray for our team as we prepare to do a gospel outreach outside in the community- in the middle of the open dump site. The youth have prepared drama and music presentations, we will do a film showing and share the good news.The young man named Jerric who was supposed to be shot dead by a Tondo gang and got his leg amputated has written a rap about his testimony and how God even used the shooting to give him a second life in Christ is performing.
Would you pray for him and the other from the Tondo/Navotas community who are involved. It is a massive thing for them to stand in the middle of that place and declare the goodness of Jesus. Would you pray that God would move in a special way.
We are not the answer. Jesus Is.
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